In vivo imaging procedures are performed in order to examine in-vivo organs, and diagnose different diseases/pathologies based on in-vivo images. Different pathologies may be detected in images, such as bleeding, adenoma, polyps, ulcers, abnormal growths or tumors that may project from a mucous membrane, for example the body lumen wall of the nose, the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, and the uterus. Colorectal polyps found in the colon or rectum of the GI tract may be known to be a precursor for colorectal cancer. The known long pre-malignant field of colorectal cancer and the known high survival rate after polyp removal may enable efficient prevention of colorectal cancer by systematic screening and timely removal of colorectal polyps. Manual screening procedures or methods, for example screening procedures to screen for colorectal polyps found in the colon or rectum, are known.
Manual pathology screening methods may include imaging a body lumen wall, for example, the entire length of the colon or the entire GI tract with a stream of image frames and manually reviewing (e.g., a doctor reviewing) the stream to detect and/or identify in one or more image frames showing any visible tissue changes to the membrane of the body lumen wall.
Devices and systems for performing in-vivo imaging, for example, of body lumen walls are known in the art. Such devices may include, inter alia, various endoscopic imaging systems, computed tomography (CT) devices, and x-ray imaging devices.
Typically, the stream of image frames captured during a pathology screening procedure, for example, a colorectal polyps screening procedure, may be lengthy so as to cover substantially the entire area of the GI tract, or specific areas such as the small bowel, colon or rectum. Manually reviewing all image frames may be tedious as well as undesirable and inefficient as a quick screening procedure to indicate the presence of pathology or to indicate the probability that pathologies may be present in a body lumen. In addition, the visibility of a pathology may be subtle and a health professional may miss one or more pathological findings when reviewing a lengthy stream of image frames.